


You Cry Your Blood In Black

by StarlightLion



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Divergent Timeline, Let's go bois, Like this is basically torture-porn, M/M, So much torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 01:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightLion/pseuds/StarlightLion
Summary: Corvo is condemned to six months torture inside Coldridge for the murder of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin.The Outsider thinks him beautiful as he bleeds.





	You Cry Your Blood In Black

**Author's Note:**

> I know this has absolutely nothing to do with **What Lurks** and I am SO SORRY. It is being actively worked on, I promise. In the meantime, have this little adventure. Blame the Discord server, seriously.
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time Corvo dreams of him, it’s been one week since Jessamine’s murder and that fact is a wound in Corvo’s chest that overshadows all others. The taste of blood persists where Campbell’s torturer has pierced his tongue, and the acrid metallic lingerings of red hot steel. It’s been only one week since Jessamine’s murder, and Corvo doesn’t fight when he’s dragged into the interrogation room and strapped to the chair. The carefully applied cuts and brands are an agony he welcomes; it’s pain he deserves for failing so utterly, and they hurt less than the jagged pit inside him.

He’s bleeding, tonight, as he curls up in the hard cot against the wall of his cell and lets the cold seep in. It numbs his body first - fingers and toes, then limbs, and when he finally manages to slide into uneasy sleep, the cold is creeping into his chest and there it threatens even the darkness of Jess’ absence.

It’s the first time he dreams of the Outsider.

It’s not the last.

When Corvo opens his eyes, he at first thinks that he’s woken. There’s an echo of sound somewhere close, a surreal whisper that’s almost music, if only Corvo could understand the cadence of each note. He’s inside his cell, and he doesn’t bother to sit up; the lights aren’t turned up, so it’s still night. At least, that’s what he thinks at first. Then he follows the walls with his gaze, follows the way they stretch longer and longer into infinity, stretch until they curl and warp and only now does Corvo realise that there is sky above his head - if a canopy of fog that hovers low enough to suffocate him and shines in lavender and pale blue and grey all at the same time, and yet seems to be no colour at all, can truly be called a sky.

_ “You are so beautiful when you bleed.” _

Corvo jolts upright, and one hand reaches automatically for a sword that isn’t there, but he comes face to face with a stranger. Skin that’s almost translucent and pale, and eyes a solid black that’s so dark and so deep it seems to melt out underneath the skin and unwind down the stranger’s body like ink. He’s too close - so close that when Corvo realises that he can’t feel the stranger’s breath, it sends cold shivers down his spine.

Leaning back only makes Corvo realise that he isn’t breathing either. There’s an attempt, but the odd hanging sky is like water vapour in his lungs and the low ache only subsides when Corvo stops.  _ No air. _ He can’t breathe.

The panic unwinds in his gut, and he can’t look away from the stranger with the black eyes. What has he just said? The voice echoes in Corvo’s mind, something deep and hollow and unnatural, ringing on long after he’s stopped speaking. A nervous swallow, as the stranger looks down - how can Corvo even tell? His eyes are solid black, lacking irises or sclerae, and it should be impossible to tell where he’s looking - but Corvo follows the gaze down, and finds the puddle of blood he’s sitting in.

It’s his own, of course - greyed and washed out in the airless heavy fog. It seems to be the only source of light; Corvo can see with startling clarity, but he can’t pick out any lamps or stars or sunlight. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Is he dreaming?

He must be.

_ “Did you know that? Your dearest thought so. Nothing set her alight like seeing you cut down those who would hurt her. She never loved you more than when you gleamed with the blood of her enemies.” _

The stranger speaks with lips the slight colour of diluted wine, and the words are just as sharp as the teeth they tumble past. It’s almost indignant, and for a moment all Corvo can do is watch pale fingers as they’re dragged through the blood.  _ His _ blood. It’s lies, the whole lot of it. How  _ dare _ this stranger slander Jessamine’s name like this? Anger rises in the hollow cage of his ribs like billowing flames, and Corvo pushes himself up to force the words back whence they came--

There’s a flicker, like shadows made ash, and the next thing Corvo knows he’s pressed against the wall - his ears ring with the strange distant song that might just be howled whispers, and his chest  _ aches _ with the sharp urge to take a breath that doesn’t exist. So cold Corvo can’t stop the shudder, fingers around his neck that tighten and scorch and he feels his heels strike the wall. Realises, with sudden undeniable clarity, that he cannot fight this stranger.

Corvo’s feet are clean off the floor, where he’s pressed flat against the wall, held up only by one delicate hand at his throat. The stranger tilts his head - boyish face, now that Corvo bothers to observe him beyond his eyes. Short ruffled brown hair that moves as if in a breeze, and a jawline narrow enough to remind Corvo of Jessamine.  _ No. _ He grits his teeth against the comparison; it’s just because Jess is on his mind.

As if she hasn’t been for the last week. As if he’s thought of anything else since he was eighteen.

The stranger is at arm’s length. Elbow locked straight, and there’s absolutely no effort to the way Corvo is being held off his feet. Like he weighs nothing. Like it’s  _ easy. _ The fingers are so tight that if Corvo could breathe at all, he’d be struggling to. Maybe he should be grateful for it. If he can’t breathe anyway, then it doesn’t matter that this entity is strangling him.

He can’t be human. Pale lucent skin and the ink that swirls out underneath it like a creature hidden beneath the surface of a lake. His voice echoes past jagged teeth when he speaks again.  _ “Quiet, now, Corvo. Bleed for me.” _

He comes closer -  _ drifts _ closer, the movement so smooth that there can’t have been something so mundane as  _ footsteps _ involved - and tilts his head the other way. His other hand comes up, and it’s iron and lightning and something altogether arousing as he runs one thumb wet with blood over Corvo’s bottom lip. Cold and scorching, and Corvo erupts into shuddering. Heels tap against the wall, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Corvo knows they’ll bruise.

Closer again, so close that Corvo’s stomach turns over and he fears that whatever creature this is hiding behind black eyes might bite him - or  _ kiss _ him - and feral teeth are bared in a quiet smile.

_ “I am the Outsider, and you have my interest, Corvo Attano.” _

Everything spasms and fades, and Corvo finds himself tumbling into darkness. There still seems to be hands at his throat, tightening and squeezing, and the deeper he falls the worse it gets, spreading agony and a building pressure in his chest that makes him gape and gasp for air. It’s like drowning.

When Corvo wakes, his heels twinge and his throat is burning - he twists, feels the tug and pull on delicate knife wounds carved into his sides, and coughs so violently he’s afraid he might vomit. The voice echoes in his head, ringing and sinister and soft.

_ “Today, my Corvo, you wear my hands as a necklace. Let it be my mark.” _

…

The second time Corvo dreams of him, it’s been six weeks since Jessamine’s murder. He’s dumped back in his cell, and his body aches and burns with blood and brands and bruises. The handprints around his neck have faded. It’s easy to forget about them, with the new necklaces of mottled black and purple and yellow. The crossed lashes on his back sting the worst, as he lands badly and rolls and stays where he falls.

Dripping water sears every open nerve, and he’s so wet that he’s shivering, liquid falling from slicked hair into his eyes and his mouth. Has to pant for air - needs it, desperately, even though his chest feels like he’s being sat on and each breath heaves against the water that has accumulated in his lungs, each beat of his heart like a drum sending ripples through the lagoons inside him.

Today is the first time Corvo’s been waterboarded. He doubts it will be the last. They want him to sign a confession - they want him to say he murdered Jessamine with his own hand - and he  _ will not comply, _ but Corvo’s starting to wonder just how long it may take to break him.

He falls asleep on the floor, a shaking wet pile, and he hears the voice before he even opens his eyes.  _ “You’re captivating, dear Corvo.” _ A shudder that has nothing to do with the cold - even though it’s receding, and instead of cold Corvo feels something altogether more electric, an absence of heat that nevertheless fails to chill him in the purple-blue-grey-nothing fog that descends through the open roof as he dares to look into oblivion.  _ “You’re torn at every edge. Fraying and bleeding. You’re a masterpiece.” _

The Outsider’s voice is low, so low that Corvo can’t pinpoint how close he is. Shivering flakes of shadow, as he looks around - and finds the Outsider sprawled out on the floor beside him, chin resting on his palm, studying Corvo with unblinking black eyes.

The creature -  _ deity, _ Corvo thinks, the Outsider and the Void - has appeared without a shirt this time, delicate feminine shoulders and a body so narrow that Corvo can count his ribs at a glance. Ink curls through him, scintillating and shifting like living tattoos, and beads of it seep out to the surface and melt into the air. Wet and evaporating at the same time. The Outsider’s hair sticks to his scalp, dyed black with it, and when he tilts his head and leans closer, the ink swells and drops and puddles on the floor between them.

“You,” Corvo rasps, and he blinks a moment later, taken aback by the sound. He can  _ speak _ here, even if he can’t breathe. It shouldn’t be possible and it shouldn’t feel so easy past the grating of saltwater and lingering searing acid, but there’s no resistance. “You-- What do  _ you  _ want?”

He’s so tired. Everything hurts and has for so long that Corvo’s forgotten what anything else feels like. He doesn’t need this. Whatever  _ this _ is.

But the Outsider smiles a sharp-toothed delighted smile and leans closer with his whole body. Before Corvo can even blink, the deity is hovering above him, face to face, chest to chest. There’s only inches between them.  _ “To admire the way you break, darling Corvo Attano. You’re beautiful when you fall apart.”  _ Fingers reach out, trail down ribs that Corvo still won’t admit to being too stark against his skin, where before they were hidden behind hard layers of muscle and power. Their echo simmers as if Corvo’s been cut - and when he looks down, he sees blood welling out of him where the Outsider touches. The skin doesn’t seem to have been split; instead, the blood boils out from the pores, swells and bursts and dribbles down his sides.  _ “Perhaps I’ll pick up the pieces, Corvo. When they’re done with you. When you’re so wrung out and wounded you no longer function. Perhaps I’ll take each bleeding fragment and discover what puzzle we can make together.” _

The water in Corvo’s lungs is so heavy he can’t bring himself to flinch away - and he hasn’t flinched from anything yet, not from Campbell’s threats or Burrows’ gloating or the torturer’s tools, so why would he flinch from this? - and the Outsider drifts lower as he reaches up with a hand and presses it to Corvo’s face. Palm first, wrist to knuckles, and then the slow connection of each digit, and it’s like the curl and crack of the whip in reverse. Ink flows out from under the Outsiders skin and into Corvo’s and he feels it like electricity - like taking a shot of whale oil.

The noise that erupts out of him is strangled; the Outsider’s delighted smile stretches wider, and there are more teeth than Corvo feels should be possible. The other hand comes up, closes on Corvo’s other cheek in the same way. Another shot of whale oil, and for a second Corvo wonders if this is what being flayed is going to feel like. He has no doubt he’s going to find out.

Low and soft, the Outsider  _ purrs. _ Corvo’s trying to writhe away; this doesn’t count as flinching. It’s almost impossible to stop himself from trying to escape while the touch is on him - fire or Outsider, blade or whip, it’s just reflex. Gentle, dextrous fingertips dig into Corvo’s temples, and it feels like molten pins being screwed into his skull. The moan is pure agony, but he hears the Outsider sigh blissfully anyway.

_ “My favourite part is when you cry, dear Corvo.” _

The kisses are brief - tiny flutters, like the caress of a storm trapped in a butterfly’s wings - but they press once to the lids of each eye, and Corvo awakes in a rush of wordless shouting and flailing limbs. He thrashes onto his side-- is he crying? It feels like he’s crying-- except the gasp of air is raw against his throat and the coughing turns quickly into the rush of seawater and he chokes on it, half salt and half acid-- and when he can  _ breathe _ again and think through the reflection of the Outsider’s voice in his head, he reaches up-- and it’s not tears spilling down his cheeks from his eyes, it’s sticky and dark red--

Corvo doesn’t dare to sleep for the rest of the day, curled up and shaking on his cot, and when the guards come for him it’s almost a relief.

He finds out, later that month, that the whale oil is nothing like - and so much worse than - being flayed.

…

The third time Corvo dreams of him, it’s been four months since Jessamine’s murder, and he no longer has the energy to miss her. He’s a sorry heap near the door to his cell, and he hasn’t moved in hours. He’s not sure when he managed to fall asleep, but when he opens his eyes to the Void, he still doesn’t try.

Pain is so omnipresent that he’s almost stopped feeling it. Moving is exhausting and difficult, and he can’t remember the last time he ate anything that stayed down. He doesn’t even move when the Outsider settles closer around him; Corvo can see ribbons of black energy and long elegant hands that trace patterns down his arms and leave sealed wounds and bloody trails in their wake.  _ “Hello, darling.” _

It’s whispered from behind him, and the body that wraps close to his is simultaneously small and delicate, and encompases him entirely. Blistering cold erupts against his skin, and flashing whale oil seeps underneath as the swirling ink moves from the Outsider to him. Corvo can’t even summon the energy to turn around and look; it should horrify him, but he collapses back and lets his head roll onto the Outsider’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Everything burns, and it doesn’t matter.

Everything will always burn, until the day they remove his head.

_ “You are exquisite, Corvo. How many days has it been since you saw the sun? How many weeks since you last tasted freedom?” _ A kiss is pressed to Corvo’s jaw, just below his ear, and it feels like being dipped in molten steel. A shuddering sound rises out of him, turning his head away weakly.  _ “How long, Corvo, until you beg for my presence over theirs?” _

That strikes an odd chord in Corvo’s chest. The Outsider has thus far been a rare and dreaded occurrence. It’s starting to seem likely that he’s watching, the way Corvo is tortured. He has to wonder the the god gets out of it. Surely, after an infinity, there’s no technique that could offer novelty.

The next kiss is open teeth, and the scrape and tug at Corvo’s earlobe. He shudders, whale oil and lightning that coil in his chest, and something altogether darker and heavier that oozes from sternum to gut. “Stop…” Weak and pathetic, but he’s so tired. There isn’t a single part of him that doesn’t ache, but the worst is his chest, sharp and narrow from collar to pectoral, written in a tight cramped hand and jagged from being carved with a knife tip.

_ I killed Jessamine Kaldwin. _

It’s not true, and it will never be true, and Corvo will never confess to it. But there had been triumph in Burrow’s face when he’d etched it into Corvo’s body, to stay forevermore with blood and scars - until they kill him, and they  _ will _ execute him and Corvo looks forward to that day a little more with every passing hour - and Corvo knows it was well deserved. He cannot change it. And he’s starting to think it might be true, in any case. He might not have wielded the blade himself, but he had failed to stop it.

He’s alive, and Jessamine is dead. As a Royal Protector, Corvo has betrayed and failed his Empress. He may as well have done the deed.

The Outsider purrs in his ear. His withering touch lingers along Corvo’s back and shoulders, down to his thighs, around his sides. It occurs to Corvo that he has failed to dress, since being finally -  _ finally _ \- dragged out of the furnace room (so hot, so unbearably excruciatingly hot that Corvo is dizzy and spinning even now in sleep from how difficult it became to breathe, and his throat burns from bringing up bile); he can feel the Outsider’s skin against every inch of him, and the thought that the god must be naked too is distant, but there.

It’s enough, just barely, to make Corvo try and crawl away. There’s a flicker of liquid ash, and everything spirals for a second so violently that Corvo feels like he’s upside down when it stops - he’s slammed back into the wall of his cell so hard his vision flashes white, and he hears the  _ crack _ of his bones against stone. A low growl, something that isn’t human but isn’t animal either, deeper and older and angrier. A depth of the ocean where even leviathans fear to go.

Black eyes meet Corvo’s when he can bear to open them again; black ichor bleeds down the Outsider’s cheeks, and what feel like claws are digging into each shoulder. The Outsider is pressed so close against him that Corvo can barely focus on anything else, harsh stone at his back and unbearable shivering lightning everywhere else, like falling into a vat of unprocessed whale oil.

The growl rolls into words, and Corvo understands but it’s hard to tell the difference.  _ “You cannot defy me, Corvo. It is immutable. And here, in this place, you are at my mercy. It would be in good taste to beg that I continue to have any. This wall will never forget the shape of your body, but I have yet to ensure that your body remembers the shape of  _ **_mine.”_ **

The kiss, this time, is vicious and snarled - Corvo recoils, sees stars pop before his eyes as his head impacts the wall, and still does not escape it. The lightning settles in his gut like a second heartbeat. He hates with a passion that threatens to ignite his bones that this is happening and it  _ isn’t Jessamine. _ More so than the fact the Outsider is, apparently, pursuing him in his dreams, it’s the fact that it isn’t Jessamine - and it will never again be Jessamine - that overwhelms him.

When the Outsider lets him wake, Corvo crumples to the floor from where he finds himself standing back to the wall, and cannot find it in himself to even try to move. Let him fall. Let it consume him. If the Outsider withdraws his mercy, if that’s what this is supposed to be, then so be it. Someone will kill him, eventually, and then this will be over.

_ Emily will be alone, _ thinks the last bastion of resistance, and it’s agony in his chest and tears spilling down his face, and not enough to subside the ever-growing desire to join Jess in death.

…

The fourth time he dreams of the Outsider, it’s been six months since Jessamine’s murder and Corvo is to be executed the next day.

He’s sprawled on his cot. It’s not even a surprise, this time, when he opens his eyes to meet the Outsider’s gleaming black ones. There’s no seeping of the black, this time; translucent skin, stripped bare under the Void sky - if indeed such a thing can exist - and sharp teeth and ink-stained eyes and… otherwise, he appears very human.

_ “Hello,” _ the Outsider purrs softly, trailing fingertips down Corvo’s ribs. They cross bruises and wounds and a freshly weeping brand, and Corvo shudders. He was definitely dressed when he fell asleep, this time, but it seems not to matter. He’s as bare to the sky as the Outsider is. And Corvo says nothing in response. There’s no point.  _ No point in anything. _ He’s going to die when he wakes. Emily will be alone, and Corvo will join Jessamine no matter what he says on the matter of her death, and the Outsider will find a new plaything - and the universe will go on, and  _ Emily will be alone. _

The sob that tears out of him feels like it might crack ribs, but Corvo just throws one arm over his eyes and remains under the Outsider’s scrutiny. Their bodies are pressed close, the god cuddled up close on the cot (slightly wider than in reality, Corvo thinks), but the whale oil pyre is meaningless. It boils and burns, and he doesn’t care.

Teeth scrape against delicate skin and when they prick against Corvo’s collar he twitches - but he still doesn’t move away. It’s sick and wrong, but Corvo’s going to die and Emily with be alone and for all that the Outsider’s touch feels like being set alight, it’s the softest thing he’s felt in six months. He hasn’t been alone like this since he was a child. Hasn’t missed anything like he misses Jess.

He’s  _ alone, _ and he’s tired. The Outsider makes him boil, but it isn’t torture. He doesn’t want Corvo to confess to murdering the one he loves.

_ “You’re beautiful and broken, Corvo,” _ the Outsider whispers, trailing fingertips across Corvo’s lips.  _ “Utterly captivating.” _ He leans in closer - Corvo feels the press of his body shift and ripple against him, and their legs tangle together. He shudders. He’s not entirely sure anymore if it’s a bad shudder or not.  _ “And when you beg me for death, when you’re so stunning you want only to die,  _ **_then_ ** _ I will claim you.” _

Corvo doesn’t understand what means, exactly. Not for some time. But he doesn’t wake yet, not like all the other times, and the Outsider stays coiled around him. It is, Corvo supposes, his last night. If the Outsider wishes to savour his twisted joy for as long as possible, then let him. What does it matter?

He’ll die tomorrow. Shattered and wounded and failed. He doubts it will be pleasant; a beheading is a distant dream that befitted the Royal Protector. A traitor who slew the Empress is afforded no such luxury. The kindest fate Corvo can hope for is hanging - and they will be careful, it will be a long struggle while the rope cuts into his throat and asphyxiates him, no merciful release of drop and broken neck.

In truth, Corvo dares not hope even for that. Whatever horrific death Burrows and Campbell have lined up for him, it is sure to be slow and humiliating. Emily will be alone either way. And he has no doubt that she will learn of his execution, wherever she is. Perhaps she might be made to watch.

The thought curdles in Corvo’s stomach, and he slowly takes his arm away and turns his head - looks into the Outsider’s eyes. His fingers are currently playing aimless patterns across Corvo’s stomach.

“... You can kill me,” he says lowly. He’ll die either way. Anything to spare Emily even a little bit of pain. “You can--”

He doesn’t get through the sentence, because the Outsider surges forward and knots his hands in Corvo’s hair.  _ Tugs, _ the way Jessamine used to, the way Corvo dissolves into - and even now, it’s enough to drag a short startled rumble from him. The kiss is scorching and electric, and Corvo doesn’t return it but he’s shaking violently when at last the Outsider breaks away. Tastes blood and feels the sting of bitten lips, and something else deep and dark and salt-metallic; there’s ink on the Outsider’s mouth, a shiny black that reminds Corvo of the colours Jess used to wear on her lips.

_ “You wish me to kill you, dear Corvo? Beg me. Say  _ **_please.”_ **

Corvo meets his eyes.

“Please.”

And Corvo wakes to a deep burning pain in his left hand, like his bones have become a brand, and unfamiliar lightning strength erupting outwards into every nerve. The Outsider’s voice lingers, a resounding echo that exists nowhere but in Corvo’s own thoughts.

_ “You do not die this day. This is my Mark. Go on, my beautiful. They’ve broken you into jagged fragments. Use those shards to cut them open.” _

…

The cell door all but dissolves under the onslaught of magic. Corvo paints the prison glistening dancing red with the blood of each and every guard, watches the way they splinter and shatter, and finally--

_ Finally, _ he understands what the Outsider loves so much about watching him bleed.


End file.
